coat hanger wire performed just as well as costly cables.
I like what the one guy on the reddit thread said cables are like jewellery. as long as you like how they look and feel, spend the money. just don’t expect any difference in your sound.
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You know this can go nowhere but down…Where’s that damn popcorn emoji?
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indeed Shane…but perhaps cooler heads will prevail when they review the evidence.
This seems to be a subject ruled by emotion. SO many failed threads on Head-Fi with this subject.
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I use cables with a square shield. They have more of an edge. 
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ah…but HFi is full of asshats. we’re much more moderate here. unless it’s got to do to audio poop figurines.
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THAT is the emoji I need!
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Only thing i would dare to argue on the “high end (expensive cables?) are nothing but snake oil” would be the shielding of the cable. Specially with longer cable runs and with lot’s of other electronic devices / power cables, environment, etc. near the signal cables and something that can add noise or interference or weaken the signal.
On desktop use, maybe would still be good precaution?
Cause i would say a high end cable would have shielding.
They might not be expensive but were would the “line” be?
I mean 15k per cable would be but some might say it’s 30$.
I do not think the 12ft Custom GR∀EDIGGER @ 245$ plus shipping and imports and taxes and all is expensive. For what it represents.
I mean the long digital cables are like 40$ per single cable and when you need like +20 cables plus the long ass power cables are like 24$ and you need those as well but only more and so on…
Some might say that’s expensive but it ain’t. Still cheap and shielded, high end studio grade.
So where is the oil? 
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Love threads like these, always entertaining.
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well, you do need a certain gauge of cable / wire for power…especially power. so in that vein, if you’re sending tremendous wattage down a cable to a speaker, you’re going to need something capable…but capable doesn’t cost $10,000 per foot. 
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I agree.
I will forever mention and talk about psychology and the power of our brain.
You see, a person who is spending multiple thousands of dollars on a cable is a person who already owns a TOTL system, they have THE speakers, they have THE DAC, THE turntable, etc. So what else can they spend their money to achieve their idea of a perfect sounding system? Cables, cable holders, little things you place anywhere in the room that “drastically” change the sound, that’s what’s left. These people are highly enthusiastic, so you have to understand that, and they are spending their own money - of course they aren’t going to be unbiased and say that there is no difference. They will be convinced there is a difference, and therefore there will be a difference (to them).
I did a study on hallucinations and that allowed me to be truly open-minded and understand the real power of our brain. Basically, if you are person buying an expensive cable (or any other snake oil), you truly believe that it will make an audible difference. So, what happens is that your brain is expecting this difference, and therefore the brain will create this difference.
I can never forget this one psychological test where they presented a person two pairs of identical jeans. They asked the person to find the difference in them, and in fact, they did exactly that. Once your brain expects a change, it will create it even if it is not there. And that is just about what the majority of the hi-fi hobby is, it is the world that YOU create for yourself.
I myself don’t have any expectations and try to be as unbiased as possible… which means I don’t get fascinated often, and the hobby is a little more boring (because the difference in sound is usually subtle, not drastic as many reviewers portray it to be). I always laugh my ass off reading some “reviewers” talking about a DAC and then they pin-point how it changes the lows/mids/highs as though it is a completely different product… they must have a pair of really really good ears 
At the end of the day, if that person who spent a few thousand bucks on a cable feels more fulfilled and enjoys their music more, than it’s good for him. I think this is what matters the most. Even if it is snake oil, if that person lives in their world and believes in this difference, it is a reality to them and they should enjoy it. That’s why I think people shouldn’t be so bothered/angered by it. People like us, who don’t have a lot of money to waste, will always be mindful and will look at the value, but there are some people who have earned their money and will spend it on whatever they want. They have the right to do that, and it definitely should not bother you. I guess the problem is when they are trying to convince you that you should also but it and that you are crazy if you don’t hear this difference. While they will certainly not be able to understand you (because if they did, they wouldn’t have spent that kind of money on a cable), you should be the wiser one and understand them! Don’t judge, try to understand - this goes a long way in life
TL;DR - If you don’t believe that there is a difference, there won’t be a difference. If you do, however, then you will hear it.
I always end up ranting… oh well.
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is this imagined difference what we call placebo?
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…and then you have a coil of garden hose thick cable that weighs a fuckton…
You know, if people ran Titanex power cables, I would be fine with that.
I believe so.
I just look at as though it is that persons reality. They believe it and they live/hear it.
So you can’t really tell that person that there is no difference, they hear it, and they truly do.
You can do some crazy sht if you learn to control your brain, in other words: your brain can do some crazy sht.
I’ll leave this here to gain a better understanding of what a hallucination is:
The three major characteristics that hallucinationѕ have are: qualities оf a real stimuli, in the absence оf the external stimuli, аnd they аre involuntary.
So basically if a person has an auditory hallucination, they will hear it, but they cannot know if it is a hallucination, because we don’t see sound. If majority of audiophiles could just take this in, I think it would go a long way, and would let them understand how individual our hearing is. Also, it is much different from an usual auditory hallucination (in illnesses such as schizophrenia), because usually it is of a person’s voice… and obviously, if you hear a person and you don’t see them, you can know it is a hallucination. But if you are listening to music with this bias that the cable makes a difference and you hear this difference, you can’t really “remove” this bias. Don’t know if that made any sense
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Going back to hallucinations once again. The thing about them is that they have the quality of a real stimuli, which means they “are” real, that’s how the person is experiencing them. This means that you cannot tell a person that it is not real, because they are in fact truly experiencing it and perceiving as though they are experiencing it (“perceiving” because it isn’t truly happening, but it does feel as though it is).
Think of the sensation of itching. You don’t need anything to touch you (external stimuli) in order to experience it, so how would you differentiate a real itch from a hallucinatory one? It may sound like philosophy, but think about it for a second.
In the same way, how would you differentiate unbiased musical listening from the biased one?
Makes sense.
I think, therefor I am.
But are you? Or are you what I made up to be?
Confirmation bias is a hell of a drug.
When you lay out a test to confirm what you want to confirm, then that test will fit the bias you designed into it.
Or you can just build a flaw into the test without knowing it. Common example in electronics is the ground acting as an antenna making you chase pixies that are not there. (Been there, done that 
)
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funny enough this video showed up in recommendations today
if you can’t hear a difference, cool, if you can’t, also cool. if you hear a difference prefer the cheaper cable, also cool, vice versa, still cool…
its an extreme example and the line of whats “too expensive” is difficult, but I do feel there should at least be an attempt to see both sides and try things out yourself… and I don’t mean spend money on a 14000 dollar cable to whatever the fuck, maybe just spend a cheap 30-40 on a different cable and wonder if you hear a difference… i honestly didn’t think a DAC really made a difference until I heard a difference between the hifi dac of my LG and the portable dacs at a store